The Bible of Clay (51 page)

The Colonel had no response. The old man was right; if the intruder had wanted to kill him, he'd had a golden opportunity. But, then, what was he looking for in his room?

"We will find the man, Alfred; it's just a matter of time. That is why I'd like to detain Picot here a few more days; it may be one of the people in his group."

"Do it, but see that the clock doesn't run out on us."

"Understood."

"I want Picot out of here by mid-March at the latest," Tannenberg ordered.

"And when will you and Clara be leaving?"

"I'll make the arrangements for that personally, but we will not be here when the war comes, I assure you," the old man declared.

The Colonel bade his friend good-bye and left him with Ahmed and Yasir. Clara also left after giving her grandfather a kiss.

"So you have already betrayed me," Tannenberg said as soon as the door closed behind them.

Yasir and Ahmed squirmed in their seats.

"No one has betrayed you," Ahmed managed to say.

"No? Then how is it that you have already sold pieces from Safran without my knowledge? Shouldn't I have been informed? Do my friends think me so weak that they dare try to deprive me of what's mine?"

"Please, Alfred!" Yasir protested. "No one wants to do that!"

"Yasir, you are a traitor; truly you dream of the day you will see me dead. Your hatred has blinded your intelligence."

Yasir lowered his head and looked out of the corner of his eye at Ahmed, who appeared as nervous as he was.

"We were going to tell you; that is why we came here. George wanted you to know that he had buyers for some of the pieces."

"Oh, really? And why didn't you tell me the other night? When were you planning to give me this surprise?"

"We hardly saw you, and it didn't seem like the right moment. . .," Ahmed protested.

"You have no guts, Ahmed; you're just an employee, a follower, like Yasir, and you shall remain one for the rest of your days. Men like you don't give orders, you just obey them."

Ahmed Husseini flushed. He fought back an urge, not for the first time, to slap the old man.

"All right," Alfred continued. "I'll take this up with George. No doubt he will explain it all to me."

"That is madness!" Yasir cried. "The spy satellites are monitoring every call, and you know it. If you call George, it'll be like putting it on the front page of the
New York TimesV

"It's George who's broken the rules, not me. Fortunately, you're both idiots, and you've told me what I need to know about my friends and their plans. Now get out; I have work to do."

The two men left, certain that Alfred Tannenberg would not let the matter rest there, and that the consequences would not be pleasant.

Alfred ordered Aliya to have the guards fetch Ayed Sahadi. Among his other talents, Sahadi was one of the Colonel's best assassins.

Ayed was surprised to find Alfred sitting in a chair, as filled with enmity as ever. And he was even more surprised to hear what Alfred wanted him to do. He weighed the problems of the mission the old man was asking him to carry out. Tannenberg had been paying him very well for such work for years. And the money he'd be paid for this job dispelled all his misgivings.

It was not easy for Clara to convince Picot and Fabian to continue the excavation. But with Marta's help, for which Clara was grateful, she was able to persuade the two men that they had nothing to lose. Gian Maria needed no urging; he was going to stay until the end, as long as Clara remained in Safran.

Picot called the team together to announce they were to continue packing up equipment, so they'd be ready the minute they were told they could leave Safran. But he surprised the group by also informing them that they'd be working right down to the wire. They were going to keep digging, trying to unearth whatever further secrets they could wrest from the saffron-colored earth.

There were murmurs of protest, but Picot silenced them immediately, trying, at the same time, to stir up enough morale for the work ahead and the subsequent exhibit.

Clara returned to her grandfather. Aliya had put him to bed and Dr. Najeb had hooked him up to the monitor again.

Salam Najeb sat down with Clara and spoke as directly as he knew how: He didn't think Alfred Tannenberg could last a week.

Clara almost broke down and wept. She was exhausted and feeling overwhelmed by a growing sense of loneliness and isolation. Even Fatima was no longer there to lean on; she was in a hospital bed, more dead than alive. For her grandfather's sake, she called once again upon reserves of fortitude she'd hardly known she had.

After dinner together, the village leader continued to ply Yasir and Ahmed with sweets in keeping with the laws of hospitality. The two men finally refused any more, but they sat and chatted politely for a while longer, so as not to offend their host by a premature departure. The son offered to walk with them back to the camp, a few hundred yards away.

They walked along together, slowly and in silence, savoring the fine cigars their host had bestowed upon them. They were only about a third of the way to the camp when three men emerged from the shadows by the side of the path, two on one side and one on the other. Before Ahmed could register what was happening, Yasir shrieked and dropped to the ground. The archaeologist had time only to glimpse the knife handle protruding from Yasir's belly before their assailants grabbed up the Egyptian's body and dragged it with them back into the darkness. Ahmed stared at the village leader's son, who made no effort to conceal the blood covering his hands. Then the archaeologist doubled over and vomited. The young villager wiped the blood off his hands with a handkerchief while he waited for Ahmed to compose himself.

"Why?" Ahmed asked when he had recovered. "Mr. Tannenberg does not forgive betrayal. He wants you to know that."

"When is he going to kill me?" Ahmed asked angrily.

"I do not know," the leader's son replied simply.

Ahmed was aware of the double game the young man had been playing with Yasir, but he was clearly not prepared to resist Alfred's undeniable power at this critical juncture—and at such close range.

"Get away from me." Ahmed stumbled on toward the camp, intending to leave behind the young man who had killed Yasir without a moment's hesitation or a trace of emotion, but the killer kept pace with him long enough to deliver a parting message:

"I have been instructed to tell you that Mr. Tannenberg will be watching you. If you betray him, even if he is not with us anymore, someone will kill you exactly as I killed Yasir."

Ayed Sahadi approached the caravan. The camels had not yet been loaded with goods, and they were resting. A tall man greeted him with a warm hug.

"May Allah protect you."

"And you," Sahadi responded.

"Come have a cup of tea with us," the man said.

"I can't, I have to get back. But I want you to do me a favor."

"We are friends. You can ask me anything."

"I know, and I thank you. Here," he said, giving him a small package and an envelope. "Make sure this gets to Kuwait as soon as possible. To the address on the envelope, and may Allah be with you."

The man pocketed the sheaf of bills that Ayed gave him. There was no need to count them; he knew that the amount would be, as it had always been, satisfactory. Alfred Tannenberg paid well.

The silence of the dawn was shattered by a scream that awakened the whole camp.

Picot ran out of his house, followed closely by Fabian, and then they froze. Like them, others had jumped out of bed to see what was happening, and they, too, stood speechless.

There, in the middle of the camp, tied to a post, was the body of a man. He had been tortured. His arms and legs and face were bruised and battered, there were deep cuts and bloody wounds on his body, and his hands and feet were missing. Most horribly, his eyes had been pulled out and his ears cut off.

Some of those who'd rushed outdoors couldn't bear to look at the mutilated body and vomited; others just stood there, not knowing what to do, relieved to see the soldiers run up and take charge.

"That's it. We're finished! They're going to kill us all!" Picot shouted furiously as he spun around and stormed back into the house he shared with Fabian.

Marta came into the house, flopped down in a chair, lit a cigarette, and didn't say a word.

"Marta, are you all right?" Fabian asked her.

"Far from it. I've had it. I don't know what's going on here, but this place is turning into a graveyard. I
...
I think we need to get out of here, today if possible."

"Take it easy." Fabian tried to soothe her. "We all have to calm down before we start making decisions. And we need to talk to Clara and Ahmed as soon as we can. They have an obligation to tell us whatever they know."

"That man . . . that man out there is the one who came in with Ahmed," said Marta.

"Yes, the Egyptian, Yasir. Ahmed said he worked for Mr. Tannenberg," Fabian agreed.

"Who could do such a thing?" Marta asked him, her eyes filled with terror.

"I want to see your grandfather."

Ahmed's tone of voice was that of a defeated, frightened man. Clara was shocked by his condition: his clothes and hair rumpled, his eyes bloodshot—
From crying?
Clara wondered—his hands trembling.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't tell me you've missed the spectacle your grandfather mounted. Was it necessary to profane his body? He's a monster . . . that man is a monster—"

"I
...
I don't know what you're talking about," Clara stammered.

"Yasir—he's killed Yasir and mutilated his body and exhibited him out there in the middle of the camp for all to see, so none of us will forget who is in charge, the lord of us all. . . ."

Ahmed was now weeping in earnest, oblivious to the contempt of the guards.

Clara fought back panic. "He won't see you; he's resting." "I have to see him, I want to know when I'm to die!" Ahmed shouted.

"Not another word! I won't have you spouting this garbage. Get out of here. In fact, I want you back in Baghdad today, where you will follow the instructions my grandfather gave you, to the letter. Now move."

The Colonel's arrival in the midst of their exchange disconcerted Clara, although she refused to wilt under the man's icy glare. "I wish to see Mr. Tannenberg," he told her.

"I don't know whether he's up yet. Wait here."

Clara left him with Ahmed in the living room and went into her grandfather's room. Aliya had just shaved him and Dr. Najeb was about to remove a needle from his arm, leaving him without either plasma or saline solution.

"I told you he shouldn't exert himself," the doctor said to Clara by way of greeting.

"And I told you to keep your mouth shut," said Alfred. "Leave us. I told you I need to be strong today."

"But you're not ready, and I can no longer take responsibility for what you're asking me to do—"

"Leave me alone with my granddaughter," Tannenberg commanded.

Dr. Najeb and Aliya left the room without another word. "What's wrong, Clara?"

"The Colonel wants to see you. It looks serious. Ahmed came in too. He says that Yasir's body is out in the middle of the camp . . . that you had him killed and mutilated.
..."

"That's right. Does that surprise you? Betraying me has fatal consequences. That was a reminder to both the men here and my friends in Washington."

"But. . . but what did Yasir do?"

"He conspired against me, spied on me for my friends, did business behind my back."

"How do you know that?"

"How do I know? Really, Clara. Now tell the Colonel to come in and that son of a bitch of a husband of yours to leave—he has his instructions."

"Are you going to kill him?"

"I might; it all depends on what happens in the next few days." Clara hesitated a moment. "Please, Grandfather, please, don't kill him."

"Clara, not even for you would I fail to do something that I think is necessary to keep my affairs running properly. If I hesitate, if I don't show the others what I can do, then they'll do it to us first. Those are the rules. Not even I am exempt from them. Yasir's death has demonstrated to George, Enrique, and Frankie that I'm alive and well; it's also underscored that to my partners here, including the Colonel. They've all understood the message. Now go and do as I tell you."

"What am I going to say? To Picot, to Marta—they're going to demand answers," asked Clara.